Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
120
“No. By the way, did you notice that Count Andrenyi keeps his handkerchief in his right-hand 
breast pocket?” 
M. Bouc shook his head. His mind reverted to the astonishing revelations of the last half-hour. 
He murmured: 
“Lies—and again lies. It amazes me, the number of lies we had told to us this morning.” 
“There are more still to discover,” said Poirot cheerfully. 
“You think so?” 
“I shall be very much disappointed if it is not so.” 
“Such duplicity is terrible,” said M. Bouc. “But it seems to please you,” he added 
reproachfully. 
“It has this advantage,” said Poirot. “If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he 
will usually admit it—often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess 
right
to produce 
your effect. 
“That is the only way to conduct this case. I select each passenger in turn, consider his or her 
evidence, and say to myself, ‘
If
so and so is lying, on what 
point
is he lying, and what is the 
reason
for the lie?’ And I answer, ‘If he is lying—if, you mark—it could only be for such a 
reason and on such a point.’ We have done that once very successfully with Countess Andrenyi. 
We shall now proceed to try the same method on several other persons.” 
“And supposing, my friend, that your guess happens to be wrong?” 
“Then one person, at any rate, will be completely freed from suspicion.” 
“Ah!—a process of elimination.” 
“Exactly.” 
“And whom do we tackle next?” 
“We are going to tackle that 
pukka sahib
, Colonel Arbuthnot.” 

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